


Phantom Limb

by hollo



Series: Pavor Nocturnus: A Voltron Horror Anthology [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blood, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Eldritch, Gen, Gore, Horror, Other, Psychological Horror, Shiro POV, Tentacles, let shiro sleep? haha more like let shiro suffer, losing the things that probably mean the most at this point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-08
Updated: 2016-09-08
Packaged: 2018-08-13 20:27:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7985158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollo/pseuds/hollo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>....and through it all the pain shocked through the third arm, an arm he couldn’t<br/>see but which he could very much feel still extended towards the alarm - feel it's weight and it's form and it's presence as clearly as he felt the others.<br/>-<br/>The worst part was when it reached out and touched something; the worst part was when it grabbed hold.</p><p>~Shiro POV~</p>
            </blockquote>





	Phantom Limb

**Author's Note:**

> Another horror fic. I've created the Pavor Nocturnus series and I'd like to keep it going (I have some thoughts on what to do for fics involving Pidge and Hunk) however I don't know how interested people would be.  
> If you'd be interested in seeing more horror fics from me, please let me know so I can keep it going.
> 
> As for this fic, well - you take one part phantom sensations, one part vague eldritch horror, add in some body horror and a healthy sprinkling of psychological uncertainty, mixed it all together in a margarita shaker - and this pops out. I hope you enjoy. Please mind the tags - there is blood, there is gore, and hopefully there is unsettling things contained within.
> 
> Thank you for visiting!  
> You can find me on tumblr at itsdetachable.tumblr.com  
> Like horror in your Voltron? Want more of it? Keep an eye out on my [writing tumblr](https://hollowrites.tumblr.com) for updates on my pet project, the Voltron Horror Collection!

The pain had always been the worst. It would start with a tingle at the tips of his fingers, like he'd just touched something a bit too hot or cold, before growing slowly into physical white noise shuddering beneath his skin, crawling like ants up his arm, over the elbow and to his shoulder. By that point the pain would be blossoming, daggers digging into each joint of his fingers and sending agonizing fiery jolts throughout the limb. 

It didn't seem to matter much to his brain that his arm was no longer there.

Shiro groaned, shifting onto his back on the bed. The room was dark, save for a small strip light by the bathroom door, the shadows made murky with its dim light. Glancing at the clock set into the bedside cabinet, he saw he'd only gotten about two hours of sleep so far. Wonderful.

Lifting his right arm, he held it up in front of his face and focused on it. In the darkness, with its circuits unlit, it didn't even look mechanical. It almost looked real. 

He flexed each finger slowly, allowing the feedback from the sensors to push through the pain each time, focusing on it.

There, see, he told his brain, it's right there, right in front of you. It's whole. It's fine.

Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. Brains were strange, and that night it felt like it took forever before the dagger-sharp pain receded. After all this time he still hoped for it to fade away completely, leaving him free of aches, of white noise, of spider feet tingling along the fingers. It hadn't happened yet, and wouldn't happen that night. The best he could do was bear the remaining flutter beneath his non-existent skin and try to go back to sleep.

Resting the arm next to himself (he hated how it felt when he lay it across his body, heavy and unwanted) he closed his eyes and steadied his breath. He used to be good at it, falling asleep in moments, cat napping for fifteen minutes to recharge his internal batteries before the next phase of flight. He used to run like a machine.

Now he couldn't even get the thoughts in his head to stop spinning for longer than a few seconds. 

He found himself remembering the dream he'd just had, a blood red sky with three green suns and a savanna of lavender tinged waist-high grass. Five lions hadd been arranged in star-point around him, facing him. Not metal lions, but the familiar tawny furred and amber eyed lions of home. They crouched, tails twitching, eyes focused on him with an intensity that should have been distressing but somehow felt deserved. He'd been struck by the juxtaposition of familiar with alien, couldn't help but start to wonder why it was that the lions of his home planet and the lions of planets so far away seemed to be the one and the same. How could Galran lions and Altean lions and Earth lions be the same....

The pain was back, waking in a gentle throb that grew bigger and harsher with each passing moment. Gritting his teeth, he struggled in vain to gain some control over it, but it spiralled away into stabbing pulses that finally managed to wrench a sob from him. 

He glanced at the clock again - he'd lain down in bed exactly three hours and five minutes ago. His pulse raced and his head spun - he couldn't take this, he needed to sleep. Well, he needed oblivion, is what he needed, absolute division from the dreadful pain, but sleep would have to do. Turning over, he reached down and pulled open the bottom drawer in the cabinet. Tucked into the far back corner was a box, and inside that box were several small injector pens and a vial of bluish liquid. 

He could still remember the look on Allura's face when he'd ask her for help, to find something, anything, in the medical offerings of the castle that would quiet the pain for at least a little while. He might not have asked, actually. He might have begged, through gritted teeth and with choked voice, in the middle of the night cycle as he stood by her door with tears in his eyes. That might've been the truth.

He told himself it wasn't pity he’d seen in her eyes, but sympathy. Sometimes he even believed it.

The injector pens were easy enough to use, even one handed. A button on the side ejected the short needle from the tip, and he poked that through the membrane at the top of the vial. The pen was programmed to take in only a certain amount of the liquid, and once that threshold was reached the needle retracted back into its chamber. Taking a shaky breath, he pressed the tip of the pen to his arm right above the metallic connection and pressed the button again. 

If there was pain associated with the needle's penetration, he couldn't feel it over the agony in his arm. Moving gingerly, he placed the pen back in its box next to the others, replaced the vial, and tucked the box back into its corner. 

Laying back on the bed, arms stretched out beside him, he counted his breaths and waited for the medication to take effect. The pain persisted a few moments more,  until a sudden and intense chill shot through it. It spread through all of his body, leaving him numb and loose-limbed and blissfully pain free. Breathing shakily, he closed his eyes and let oblivion come.

 

-^v-

 

The lions had returned, with the lavender colored grass around them and their amber eyes burning holes through him. He knelt, wearied and worn. He couldn't catch his breath, he couldn't breathe, but even as the burning in his lungs rose he felt nothing but a detached sense of disappointment, of loss, of frustration. He was so tired.

The lions watched him, eyes glinting, mouths dropped open to reveal their canines, their tongues. Unmoving they watched him, and he realized he was trapped, that there was no place for him to go, nowhere where he could move without them being on him in a second. Their presence was constricting, it was almost palpable, as if they already had their paws wrapped around him, their claws digging into his skin. They were the ones pulling the air from his lungs, the ones weighing him down.

“This…” His voice came out in a croak, throat dry from panting to catch his breath. A sound like whispers filtered through his mind, like the touch of spiderwebs on his face, like dry branches tapping against a window.

“This isn't what I wanted…” 

Desperate, raw, quiet and yet so loud in the stillness, he despised his voice right then, despised how weak it sounded. How helpless.

The whispers rose from the back of his mind to the front, a multitude of voices clamoring over each other in a buzzing cacophony that he couldn't make sense of. He whimpered, clutched his head, repeated  _ louder _ , 

“This isn't what I wanted.”

The lions growled suddenly, he could see them lifting into crouches, tawny haunches set and heads lowered, paws digging into the soft ground.

“Isn’t there anything else for me?”

The whispers grew louder still, not cleaner and not understandable but oddly soothing. He looked up into the three sun sky. Something stirred in the space between the suns, something moved in the sky, like shadows. Like memories of shadows.

He licked his dry lips and asked again,

“Isn’t there anything other than this?”

 

-^v-

 

"Good one Pidge," Shiro said with a grin, falling back into a defensive position. Pidge grinned back, bouncing on the balls of her feet and bringing her fists up. Their little sparring match had been Pidge’s idea, one that Shiro had enthusiastically supported when she’d asked, but was now beginning to regret. He'd forgotten just how much energy Pidge packed into her tiny body, and he hadn't had anywhere near enough sleep to keep up with it.

Thankfully, Pidge wasn't quite at his level or speed and he was able to half-ass his way through most of it, blocking and redirecting her punches and dodging her enthusiastic kicks. 

Then Pidge directed a high kick at his torso, and he blocked with his right arm, and for a moment the reverb of that connection shuddered completely through him, to the top of his head and the tips of his toes, as if he were a metal sheet hit by a hammer. The Galran arm spasmed, it almost felt real,  _ alive _ , and something like dread settled in the pit of his stomach. For several breaths it felt like he had  _ two right arms _ , diverging at his shoulder and existing somewhat on top of each other. He could feel them clearly, not the phantom tingle, not the pain, but a very real sensation of bone and sinew and muscle and skin laying on top of, though slightly off axis, to the Galran metal and circuits and sensors.

Then the sensation was gone, and he was left staring bewildered at the smooth gray metal of his right arm.

“Shiro? You okay?” Pidge asked, and he looked over to see her watching him uncertainly. 

“Uh, yeah. I'm fine.” He grinned widely, flexing his right hand, then added with a laugh, “I think you hit a pressure point.”

“Good or bad?” Pidge asked, dropping her fists and looking concerned. Shiro raised an eyebrow, turning his hand over and eyeing the arm critically.

“Not sure…” He said finally. Realizing Pidge was still giving him a concerned look, he turned back to her and grinned. “It’s fine, Pidge, don’t worry.”

“If you say so,” She said uncertainly, though she fell back into a ready stance when he motioned for her to. “But don’t blame me if it happens again and it short circuits.”

Shiro laughed at that, and readied himself.

 

-^v-

 

There had been a time, not long after the Druids had replaced his arm with Galran tech, after they’d tested him and probed him and tore his mind to pieces, that he'd have vivid, horrid nightmares. They’d duplicate each other, repeat endlessly through the night until he woke shuddering and out of breath and hoarse from screaming into the darkness. 

He’d find himself at the center of the gladiator’s ring, but it would be dark and empty. The stands would be shadowed, the seats full of shifting vapors. There would be columns, or sometimes there would be obstacles, oftentimes his dreams would mimic the scenes of the battles he’d endured, but one thing was always the same - he'd be alone, no enemy to fight, no one to watch him. Alone, and yet voices would speak out of the empty stands, hisses and growls-

_ Champion _ , they'd start chanting,  _ Champion...Champion! _

The voices would grow louder, harsher, demanding - and the Galran arm would twitch violently in response. He’d try to make sense of the shadows, try to control the arm but it would act on its own, no part of him - a beast of metal and circuitry and unknown magic, lighting up in sickening shades of violet. 

_ Champion! _

He’d find himself backing away from the arm, desperate to find a place where it wouldn’t find him, but it was  _ part of him _ \- he could feel the treacherous energy flowing through it, pulling his very being into it and returning it as something alien and unfamiliar, a pain and a suggestion and a threat that delved into his very core. Desperate, he would try to tear it off -

_ Champion! _

-and it would rip itself out of his grasp, launch at him and grip him by the throat. He’d scream-

_ CHAMPION! _

-and be drowned out by the multitude of chanting voices, and all the while the hand at his throat would choke him, crush him, the crowd growing frenzied and louder as the taste of blood grew thick on his tongue...

 

-^v-

 

Shiro had woken to the pain again, the tingling like darts of fire spreading from his fingers to his shoulder and back, a circuit of agony that had him clutching at his sheets as he struggled to catch his breath. He hadn’t woken this time until his alarm had gone off, a miracle in and of itself, but now it rang shrill and loud in the stillness of his room. Biting back a moan, he reached out with his right arm to tap the button to turn it off and clutched at his sheets with both fists, struggling to get the pain under control

He clutched the sheets with both fists and felt the button of the alarm depress under his touch and his eyes snapped open, his breath hitching as he felt the very real sensation of a third arm reaching out to touch the alarm next to his bed. 

The alarm turned off. He lifted his head to look down at his body, at the left and very human arm, sheets gripped in its fingers. At the other, very non-human right arm, the metal glinting in the glow of the strip light. Slowly, he turned to face the alarm on the bedside cabinet. The button at the top was depressed, the blinking indicator on the bottom right side notifying that the alarm had been delayed for another few minutes.

And through it all the pain shocked through the third arm, an arm he couldn’t see but which he could very much feel still extended towards the alarm - feel it's weight and it's form and it's presence as clearly as he felt the others.

Struggling to catch his breath, he stared at that empty space, trying to find some way to resolve the  _ feeling _ and the  _ reality. Feeling _ was that unseen arm and  _ reality  _ was the empty air - but  _ reality _ was also the alarm, the snooze button pressed by what should only have been a  _ feeling _ . He shuddered, watching the empty air as if at any moment the  _ feeling _ and the  _ reality _ would become the same thing, his eyes stinging with the effort.

He blinked, finally, and turned away to look back up at the ceiling. There were shadows there that the strip light couldn't reach, shadows he didn't want to see. He closed his eyes, focused on his body and willed the pain and the sensation of an extra limb away.

 

-^v-

 

“I didn’t want to bother you but it’s starting to really worry me…” Shiro said with some difficulty, ashamed to admit just how deeply the past days had affected him. Hunk gave him an encouraging grin as he powered on the diagnostics computer, a warmth that took the edge off of Shiro’s shame.

“Don’t worry about it,” Hunk said cheerfully, looking down at the coiled wires in his hands. He pulled them loose one by one, fingers gently smoothing the tangles out.. “I know we usually use this terminal to test Galran drones and stuff but with these modded connectors I’ll be able to take a look inside that arm of yours.”

He looked at Shiro then, worry creasing his brow as he asked the question Shiro had been dreading, “What’s going on?”

Shiro looked down at his arm, clenched his fist and felt the feedback. The arm had behaved that day, not even a phantom tingle since he’d woken, but the relative quiet only served to unsettle him. He felt like something was following him all day long, watching him, waiting for him to drop his guard before it attacked. 

“I think the sensors are malfunctioning, I’ve been getting the feeling that my arms-arm… that my arm isn't on center, like it's… Not where it actually is. It’s hard to explain but...” Shiro admitted finally with a weak grin. 

“Like phantom sensations?” Hunk asked. Shiro nodded. Hunk sighed softly, turning back to the wires. Sensor pads were attached to the ends, and he applied them to several spots on the arm. The specialized connectors he plugged into ports at the wrist. Turning to the computer, he began working through the diagnostics program, and Shiro could only sit and wait. 

The Galran arm lay heavy and deceptively innocent looking on the desktop before him. He hated it, hated the way it felt and hated where it came from and how he came to have it - but he hated being  _ thankful _ for it more, hated being reliant on it, hated knowing that without it, he’d still be trapped on a Galran prison ship, relegated to the unsavory duties of other disabled prisoners, helpless and hopeless. He hated knowing that by giving it to him, the Druids had given him his best chance for escape. His best chance to  _ live _ .

“All right, so.” Hunk frowned thoughtfully, eyes scanning the information displaying on the screen. “It uh… doesn’t look like there’s a problem?”

Shiro eyed the arm again, the sick feeling in his gut that had become ever-present since he’d first woken to the sight of it stirring, growing deeper and darker.

“You’re sure?” He asked carefully. Hunk gave him an apologetic look and shrugged.

“Pretty sure, Shiro. Sorry?” Hunk eyed Shiro’s arm, lips flattening into a pensive frown. “Maybe we have to have it hooked up when it’s actually doing the thing? That it does, with the weird feeling? If we do that, the computer might be able to pick up on any crossed signals or something…”

“That’s a good idea.” Shiro flexed his fingers, as if that would call up the feeling of the third arm, but nothing happened. He’d just have to wait, he decided with a sigh. He grinned at Hunk, “Thanks for your help.”

“Anytime,” Hunk said good naturedly, grinning, and clapped Shiro on the shoulder. “Just let me know when you want to try again.”

Shiro smiled, feeling somewhat better than he had earlier. It was good to have someone like Hunk around, whose very presence was calming and centering. Sometimes, Shiro wondered what they’d do without him-

 

-^v--^v-

 

“-and I haven’t seen him since dinner last night!” Lance was practically hyperventilating, hands clutching at his hair. “I thought he went to bed early I didn’t think-”

Shiro’s body was buzzing like bees trapped in a covered bowl, angry and vibrating and unable to break free. The lines of his body felt like heart monitor readouts, spiking and dipping and spiking again erratically.

“It’s not your fault.” Keith said, and Lance rounded on him with such energy it made Keith take a step back.

“I WAS AT HIS DOOR KEITH.” Lance grabbed Keith by the shoulders. “I was there and he wasn’t answering and I just thought he fell asleep and-”

Shiro tried to steady himself, tried to breathe, but his breaths came too fast and the taste was horrid, sour and foul and full of pollution. The world tilted on an unknown axis, his balance coming and going and turning him upside down.

“Lance, please, calm down.” Allura said in a soothing voice. The brunette turned to her, eyes still wide and fearful, but said nothing. “We’re all worried about Hunk, but I’m sure that we will be able to find him.”

Find… Hunk… Shiro blinked, casting his gaze around. Everyone was gathered in the command room, scattered across the dais and the floor. The screens above them displayed several different views: an empty lion bay, a stony and lava riddled planet, computer readouts that prickled Shiro’s skin. He had the distinct feeling he should be able to read them, but they were gibberish, shapes and angles that he couldn’t make sense of. 

_ Something happened to Hunk. _ He shook his head fitfully, something like words or whispers flitting around within it, half-formed thoughts that faded as he touched on them.

“If I’d gone in yesterday we would’ve known something was wrong sooner.” Lance said dismally, hands finally falling down to his sides. 

“Well sure, that might’ve helped.” Pidge said from where she was sitting with her back against the wall, tapping away at her laptop. Her eyes were rimmed with red but there was a fierce fire within them. “But you can’t think about what might’ve been. We don’t have the time. We have to focus on the now, find out how much we know and go from there.”

Shiro would’ve agreed, if he had any idea what was going on. It looked like they’d been in the control room for a while, that they’d been talking about Hunk’s… disappearance… for a while, and yet Shiro couldn’t remember any of it. Hunk had been helping him run diagnostics on his arm, he remembered, but everything after that was hazy and unformed, the memories distant. The rest of the day, that… that morning? His mind drew a blank, he couldn’t remember any of it.

He looked back at the views on the screens. The strange planet seemed somehow brighter, the lava runs streaking their angry red across its surface in swathes and rivers, and the readouts seemed even more incomprehensible than before. Yellow crouched in her bay, rust red coating her legs and her mouth, the yellow of her body looking dusty and scratched and - Shiro blinked, looked at the screen again, but the bay was empty. He stared until his eyes watered, shuddering, but the bay was empty. Empty. Uneasily, he turned to look back at the others. Coran was saying something, but his voice sounded like a buzzsaw, like a whirring of blades and clatter of knives. Shiro frowned at the feeling, like his body was being invaded by the sound of it, like the daggers of Coran’s words were digging into his skin. He took a step back, looked back up at the screens to find Yellow staring into the camera, her eyes gleaming star bright and head taking up most of the screen. 

_ She saw him _ .

He stumbled back, unable to tear his gaze away from Yellow’s. Something was crowding his mind, something feral and unfamiliar, something like heavy gravity and rockslides and deep like caverns and black holes, a pressure both lifting him and compressing him.

“Shiro, you and Hunk were in the tech room yesterday?” Pidge asked suddenly, and the terrible pressure let Shiro go, dropped him from heights unknown though he hadn’t moved an inch. He felt the weightlessness of the drop, the spike of velocity in his gut, like it were a real thing, a physical movement. His stomach turned uneasily as he faced Pidge. His skin felt clammy, his arms felt heavy and ungainly. Pidge looked at him as if she knew something, as if the secret behind Hunk’s disappearance was written on his face for her to see, and asked, “Do you know what might’ve happened?”

The universe stretched him taut at her words, the writhing mass of his third arm the only thing keeping him stationary and whole, and he felt like a guitar string overtightened, trembling vibrations from mere sound, from air movement, his ligaments and tendons nothing but rubber bands pulled by the gravity of the situation.

Flitting thoughts, half-formed memories, solidified somewhere out of his reach - he knew, and thought he couldn’t touch it the knowledge still lay heavy in his hindbrain, thick and congealing like day old blood. He licked his dry lips, took a step back from that accusatory gaze and -

“N...no.”

- _ snapped _ .

  
  


-^v-

 

Shiro woke slowly, feeling heavy and languid. He didn't want to move. His brain felt like cotton fuzz stuffed in his skull, lightweight and empty, and there was a pleasant sense of dissociation in his joints. 

He got up anyways, because that was what good leaders did - swung his feet to the floor and stood up. He must've had a nightmare again, he realized. He'd sweated during the night, his shirt felt damp and his hair had plastered itself across his forehead. Grimacing, he lifted his right hand to brush it away - and came up empty. 

Frowning, he looked down and saw the lack of his arm, stump ending shortly below his shoulder. He brushed his hair out of his eyes with his left hand instead and looked around the room. He'd never removed his Galran arm - he didn't even know if it was  _ possible _ \- and he couldn't for the life of him understand what had happened to it.

Bewildered and feeling a bit unbalanced without the arm’s weight at his side, he left his room and headed down the corridor. The doors he passed were closed, unlit even by safety strips, and an unsettling feeling was cooking in his stomach. Silence resounded around him, but something flickered like white noise at the edges of his awareness.

The lights were on in the kitchen, and he headed in warily. Lance was seated at a counter, poking half-heartedly at a plate full of green goop.

“Oh hey Shiro,” He said with a grin, though his eyes were tired when he looked up from his plate. “What’s up?”

“Hey Lance,” Shiro said, eyeing him curiously. The room was empty, the normally shiny surfaces seemed dull and lackluster. “I can’t find my arm.”

“What?” Lance asked, spooning some of the goop onto the counter.

“My arm.” Shiro said. He motioned at the stump with his left hand. “You know, my arm, I can’t find it.”

“Dude, it’s right there,” Lance said with a chuckle, pointing at Shiro with his dirty spoon and shaking his head. 

Shiro looked down and saw that Lance was right, there was his arm.  _ HIS _ arm, whole and uninjured and entirely human. Shocked, he raised it before himself, stared hard at his hand as he flexed and unflexed his fingers, as he twisted it right and left. His arm.

“What’s wrong?” Lance asked, starting to smear the goop on the counter around with a finger. 

“I’m… I’m not sure…” Shiro said, the white noise at the edge of his awareness growing louder, beginning to squeal like a badly-set microphone. Lance was still smearing the goop around the counter, finger painting swirls in the sticky substance. Shiro stepped closer, still hesitant, still off-balance, and asked, “What are you doing?”

Lance shrugged, “Dunno. I was just thinking…”

Shiro leaned against the counter heavily.

“I was thinking about fractals, you know…” Lance said, pausing in drawing his design. It was absolutely random, and yet Shiro couldn’t help but feel that  _ it wasn’t _ , that there was something there, lurking within the lines and circles that made sense - that aligned on some strange axis to reveal a pattern. If he just squinted, if he just angled his gaze a bit differently…

“The first time I learned about Mandelbrot sets it was like -” Lance mimicked an explosion around his head, “Mind blown, man! Like, how? How do you get this pattern and you can zoom in, right, you keep zooming in and the pattern just keeps reappearing. You just keep zooming in and the pattern keeps returning and… and I mean, eventually, you just get lost right? How do you know how much you’ve zoomed in if it’s all the same?”

Something about the statement shook Shiro into crystal-clear alertness. Something about it set his spine tingling, his right arm pulsing. The squealing white noise sputtered out of existence and suddenly everything was very quiet.

“What?” He asked, staring at Lance as the other began to draw with his finger again.

“I mean, it’s like different levels, and they all look the same, and how do you know, you know? Where you are. What level.” Lance shrugged, brought a goop covered finger to his mouth and licked the green substance off of it. “How do you know if you you’ve made it back? Or if you ever left that first level at all?”

There was something in his words that tugged at Shiro’s brain almost physically, a nudge within his head that set him off balance again. His arm pulsed painfully.

Shiro’s gaze dropped to the design on the counter. That nudge came again, harder, and suddenly - the circles and lines and angles were as random as before, but now he could  _ see _ them - see how they aligned, see how they were arranged in odd, alien geometry, a pattern repeating and duplicating before his very eyes, all contained within the vivid green painted across the countertop and yet somehow existing above it and within it and  _ beyond it _ and that squealing, soul-shuddering white noise returned, louder and deeper and resonating within the core of his body. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the pattern, couldn’t move away from the counter, and all the time Lance continued dragging his finger through the green slime, adding angles and swirls that lifted into the pattern before him...

 

-^v--^v-

 

It was dark. Dark and loud and quiet and the hush was overbearing and the whispers crowded through him like molasses through a strainer, thick and slow and heavy and he couldn’t claw his way out through them, they were within him and outside of him and - 

He clawed and he fought but the voices sunk into his bones and they were one voice but they were many voices and they all sounded like his own and-

He slept.

 

-^v--^v-

 

“What’s wrong?”

There were screams. Shiro clutched at his head, the pain pulsing daggers through his skull.

“Pidge, what's wrong?” He asked again, looking down at the small form huddled at the base of the wall. “What’s wrong?”

The figure dragged itself away from him along the edge of the wall. He could see her face then, glasses gone and streaks of crimson across her face. Was she hurt? Shiro followed slowly along the length of the wall. Pidge’s screams faded to whimpers, to sobs, as she moved. Her legs dragged useless behind her, her shoulder left a dark streak against the wall.

“Pidge?” Shiro asked again, quietly. Fearfully. She looked up at him, her eyes wide with terror.

“Please….please don’t…” She choked on the words, shaking violently. Shiro could only look at her, hands pressing against his temples as the pain within his head grew, his vision bordering in white-red-white-red. Her voice was so quiet and so scared and he couldn’t understand why she’d look at him like that, he couldn’t understand why she was shaking, couldn’t understand why she started to scream again when he reached out his arm towards her.

 

-^v--^v-

 

Startled into wakefulness by a loud noise, Shiro struggled to keep his breath steady as he cast his gaze around the room. The horrible clatter was coming from the bathroom door; thumps as if it were being hit from behind by fists or palms. 

He got out of bed quickly, nearly stumbling, and hurried over to the door. He couldn't imagine what could be happening, he'd been alone the night before when he'd gone to sleep, he was sure of it. Was the mechanism broken?

No, it wasn't the mechanism. He could hear a voice, a whimper, a painful cry coming from behind the door, a muted wail backdrop to the thudding of the door. The door’s control pad showed it was locked, so he reached out to tap the door open. His Galran arm was missing, so he reached his other right arm out instead. The button flashed, and the door slid open to reveal-

  
  


Startled into wakefulness by a loud noise, Shiro struggled to keep his breath steady as he cast his gaze around the room. There was a horrible clatter coming from the bathroom door; he could see it shuddering in time with the thumps. Getting out of bed quickly, he stumbled towards the door. He couldn’t imagine what could be happening - he’d been alone the night before - what could be happening? Was it the mechanism?

No, it wasn't the mechanism. Leaning in close, he could hear a whimper behind the thumps, a muted wail backdrop to the thudding of the door. Lifting his third arm he reached towards the control pad - he couldn’t tell why but he was suddenly trembling violently, his body shaking from head to toes. A bead of sweat ran down his face to his chin, and he tapped the button on the control pad, the door sliding open to reveal-

 

Startled into wakefulness by a loud noise, Shiro breathed raggedly, clutching at the sheets. The horrible clatter was thunderous, pounding in his head, and he turned to look at the bathroom door. The strip light was harsh and glaring and he could see the door jumping under each thud. He got out of bed and hurried over to the door, wondering-wondering-wondering, he was at the door and he was wondering, and there was sweat dripping down his face. His arms shook as he braced himself against the door frame. The wails behind the door rose painfully, the thuds growing more frenzied. 

Taking a deep breath, Shiro reached out with his right arm and tapped at the control pad to reveal-

 

Starting awake, Shiro clamped his jaws shut to keep from screaming. The thuds were unending, frenzied and rapid fire, the wail rising and falling from behind the bathroom door. Unable to keep himself from moving, Shiro got up out of bed and hurried over, stumbling in an attempt to keep himself from moving towards the door, attempting to halt his compulsive need to move. Breath ragged, tearing at his throat, he leaned against the wall and found himself wondering… wondering…

He reached out with  _ the arm _ and tapped at the control panel, shaking and whimpering, to reveal-

 

Shiro screamed into the darkness, but he couldn’t hear himself over the cacophony of thuds and crashes from behind the bathroom door. The wails were multiplying, a chorus of pained voices that wove around him in a tapestry of torture. He screamed, writhing on the bed, fighting the urge to get up, screamed himself hoarse, screamed-

He got up. He sobbed his way to the door. He tapped the control pad with his other other other other other arm and the door slid open to reveal-

 

Startled into wakefulness by a loud noise, Shiro struggled to keep his breath steady. Thuds echoed slowly across the room from the bathroom door. He turned to look at it, the sweat rolling down his face. His lips were salty with it. Getting out of bed, he stumbled over to the bathroom door, shaking uncontrollably, his arms wrapped around him. The pained whimpers sounded as he neared, the thuds growing faster. Whimpering, feeling the dread of knowing - but knowing not what he knew - Shiro reached out and tapped at the control pad, the door opening to reveal-

 

Startled into wakefulness-

 

-^v--^v--^v-

  
  


The voices from the dining room were loud, and yet they rang hollow in the hallway around him. Everything felt distant, he had the feeling that if he reached out to touch something he wouldn't be able to reach it no matter how near it appeared. His steps were slow, unsteady, as he headed for the open doorway. He was starving, he'd slept the night through but his brain felt full of buzzing bees, restless and feral.

The voices only grew louder as he entered. Someone laughed too loud at a joke, and though it sent a shudder of amusement through him the feeling was quickly quashed by the deep-seated foreboding writhing in his gut.

Hunk was seated at the table.

Shiro stumbled to a halt, eyes widened, as he realized that Hunk was…

Hunk was at the table.

“Hey Shiro! What took you so long? Someone getting their beauty rest, finally?” Lance called out good naturedly. Shiro offered a shaky grin in reply.

“Uh, something like that,” He said, running a hand through his hair. The metal was cool against his scalp. He walked over to the table, still eyeing everyone uncertainly. 

“Morning,” Keith offered with a grin as Shiro sat down next to him. Shiro smiled in return, but said nothing. The air was heavy with a sense of fragility; he felt like the very fabric of reality was caught on his words, that if he spoke wrong, uttered an unnecessary syllable, the whole thing would rip apart around him.

Hunk was at the table, and no one seemed to think it out of the ordinary.

“Where...Where’s Pidge?” He ventured after a moment. 

The smiles remained on their faces, but the laughter and the banter stopped abruptly. Everyone turned to look at him.

“Well now, Pidge wasn't feeling quite well this morning,” Coran said, smile wide and bright beneath his moustache. It seemed redder than the day before, oversaturated and raw. “She decided to stay in bed a bit longer.”

“Oh but Shiro, you haven't taken anything yet. Here,” Allura was passing a plate down the table to him. Shiro couldn't recall seeing her prepare it. One by one those around the table passed the plate along, all smiling, all watching him.

His stomach turned, but he took the plate from Keith with a grin.

“Thank you.” He said into the air, unable to meet anyone’s eyes. He could feel their gazes on him.

“Of course.” Allura responded brightly.

The mass on his plate looked disgusting. He'd gotten used to the green goop that was the staple food on the castle, but this was something quite different. Thickly textured, like a thickened mousse, and colored a putrid shade of green. Streaks of brownish-red emphasized its unsightly look, marbled throughout the mass. 

He was acutely aware of everyone’s eyes on him as he eyed it, their gazes boring through him. The dark tremor within his gut awakened fully, shuddering through his body in dark tendrils of near-panic. Lifting a spoon in the steady hand of his Galran arm he scooped up a portion of the mass before him and brought it to his lips. 

Their eyes on him, he took it into his mouth.

“It's a new recipe.” Hunk said, beaming at him. “How do you like it?”

His mouth stung with the harsh tang of copper and acid, his tongue felt heavy under the assault of rancid flavor. His throat constricted as he attempted to swallow down the unchewed, thick and fibrous substance.

“Its great.” He choked out. The others smiled, returned to conversation. With fingers trembling, he set the spoon back down.

 

-^v-

 

He opened his eyes to silence. The world was dark around him but he could feel cool metal beneath him and at his back. A light flickered on, fitfully, and for a moment he saw Lance seated across from him, armor on but smeared and dirty, a tearfully frightened look on his face.

The light flickered off. 

“So… so I thought they were all the same…” Lance’s voice sounded as broken as the look on his face. He coughed, continued,

“The fractals, right? Thought they were all the same…”

“Aren’t they?” Shiro asked, clutching his arms around his body, feeling the sting of his wounds flare as he put pressure on them. His arms felt sticky with sweat, his breath ragged in his throat. He ached with the aftereffects of battle. There were so many Galran troops and they were so few in the face of such a massive onslaught...

“I thought they were…” Lance’s voice was a whisper. Shiro fell silent as well, catching his breath. There were loud thumps outside of… outside, there were loud thumps. The metal floor jumped and shook. For a moment that was all he could hear, thumps and clatters beyond...beyond them, but then Lance continued warily, “I thought they were identical but sometimes… sometimes they’re not.”

“So you can tell them apart.” Shiro said, voice shaking. He couldn't feel his body but he could feel the warmth seeping from between the cracks of his breastplate.

“Yes?” Lance coughed again, deeper, wetter. His voice sounded weak. “No?”

“So you can… you can tell when they change?” Shiro asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t know…” Lance took a deep breath. “I don’t know…”

“Can you find the one you started at, if you recognize it?”

“Maybe…” Lance’s voice sounded tearful, faded and fading. The shaking of the floor was worse by then, reverberating through Shiro’s body, and he clutched himself tighter with his three arms in a desperate and unsuccessful attempt to feel whole again.

“Maybe I’m wrong…” Lance choked out, a gasp of finality wheezing from his throat, “But maybe I’m right…”

-^v--^v-

 

“I just want to help.” Shiro said desperately, pulling Keith back to him. The ground was uneven and rocky, and Keith clawed for purchase, latched fingers around a particularly large rock and held on tight.

“No!” He cried out, choking on the blood that was pooling out of his mouth and running in rivulets down his chin. Shiro could see the pink tinged foam bubbling at the corners of Keith’s mouth. He wanted to wipe it off, he wanted to clean the blood from his face and hold him close and tell him it was all going to be all right. Everything was going to be all right, if only he let Shiro help.  All he wanted to do was help.

All he wanted to do was-

“Shiro, please don't,” Keith sobbed, wrapping his arms around the rock and kicking feebly within Shiro’s hold.

Shiro frowned, and tugged at Keith’s leg with all his arms, one swift and sharp tug, and Keith screamed.

 

-^v-

 

The castle was dark during the night cycle, though Shiro could still see his way thanks to the striplights at the base of the walls. The dim blue light led him down through the quiet hallways, his footsteps echoing eerily around him. The doorways he passed were darkened; he paused at the first few he passed, leaned close to listen for any sound. There was only silence, and the growing, deep unsettling tremor deep within him. Somehow he knew he was alone within the darkened hallways of the castle, somehow he felt that the very castle itself had left him, only a husk remaining to house him.

He was unsettled. He couldn’t remember the past few days other than for fleeting emotions - shock and disgust, and a deep seated terror that still remained, coiled within him like a black serpent. Though he struggled, he couldn’t call forth even the smallest of memories. It felt like he’d been walking in a dream, like he’d been comatose but alive, still reacting but unable to actively engage in anything. 

He sighed, running a hand through his hair, his third arm coiling uneasily around him, and headed onwards through the corridors. The castle was silent, but on the third floor he heard a sound - a pattering, like that of a soft rain. There were balconies on the third floor, meant to be used when they were planetside, and he headed for the nearest one, intrigued by the sound. 

A dark sky greeted him, clouds tinted a dark magenta crowding it from horizon to horizon, and from them fell a gentle yet constant downpour. The drops hit his face, warm and sweet when they ran into his mouth. He leaned against the balcony, dropped his head back and let the water rush soothing over his skin. The tremor in his gut stirred fitfully, but even it couldn’t break the peace the descended over him in that moment. 

It was a shame Lance couldn’t be there to enjoy it, Shiro thought, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember what had happened to him…

 

-^v--^v--^v-

 

He was screaming, voice hoarse and blue eyes bloodshot, and Shiro had begged him to stop, begged him to breathe, begged him to calm down, and all the while his right arm wrapped in thick, ropy coils around his neck, constricting so tight that Shiro could feel the skin giving way beneath it, could feel the windpipe crushing, and he sobbed until his chest ached and his throat felt raw but maybe it was for the best - but maybe it was for the best.

 

-^v--^v--^v--^v--^v--^v--^v-

 

Someone was sobbing behind him. His first thought was to help them, to ease their pain, but he couldn’t make himself move. Allura was in front of him, shattered on the ground in a mosaic of body and limbs and blood. He’d tried to put her back together but now all he could do was kneel among the wreckage and listen to the sobs that were growing weaker with each passing moment.

His Galran arm was bloodied to the shoulder, his human hand covered his mouth to keep the screams from coming. His human hand was bloodied too, and with each breath the sickeningly sweet metallic taste coated his tongue and dripped down his throat. 

The sobs behind him guttered out like a candle, bubbling staccato breaths, until only silence was left.

 

It was a long time before he could move, and when he did it was to pull mindlessly at the Galran arm, tear at the connection. It was a weight he couldn’t stand, a weight that anchored him and disgusted him and he wanted to be free of it. There was pain, but he welcomed it, pushed through it, ripped at his body and at the metal until the connection detached in a sickening squelch. Blood gushed out of the wound, thick and wine red, and his third arm raced out after it - thick and sinewy and ripping apart into a multitude of tentacles that curled and writhed in the open air. 

He should’ve been disgusted. He should’ve have been terrified. He should’ve been many things, but all those things drained out of him along with his blood, pulled out of him by the mass of writhing tentacles that were so alien and yet felt so horribly familiar,  _ so horribly right _ .

Breath heaving, Shiro dragged himself to his feet, swaying slightly as the sudden movement dizzied him. There were pieces all around him and he wouldn’t allow himself to name them, they were puzzles and they were parts and that was it. That was all he would allow them to be. Shakily, he stepped around them carefully, the thickening, drying blood pulling at his boots like syrup, and headed to the command room. The tentacles trailed behind him, reaching towards the mess and the soupy remains, dragging bloody streaks into the corridor as he went. 

He found the command room empty, dark like shadows and dark like sin, lit only by several status lights on the main console. Beyond the windows space loomed vast and unending. He stared out at it for a moment, felt the darkness before him reflect the darkness inside him - unending and empty and hiding so much.

The whispers came to him as he stood there, seeping into his brain like a numbing poison, drenching his body in white noise and detachment. With them came a presence that pressed onto his mind with a terrifying weight, immeasurably massive and heavy. He was crushed beneath its existence, a minuscule speck of dust among its endless planes. It encompassed him and it existed within him and outside of him, and he couldn’t help but tremble under the weight of its being. Slowly, he turned his eyes to the ceiling but

There was no ceiling. There was only darkness, so dark and deep and endless and massive he felt himself being pulled into its gravity. He couldn’t fight that terrible pull, the intensity stretching him atom by atom as the darkness above writhed like a living thing. His tentacles weighed around him, curling fitfully against his body as he sobbed, unable to look away from that terrible emptiness above. He mouthed words but couldn’t find his voice, his throat dry and mouth parched. 

"Why?" He asked finally, his voice barely a whisper, hoarse and broken.

The darkness above whirled suddenly, a difference in presentation he felt rather than saw - or maybe he did see it, maybe his mind had grown to accept to that possibility as it had the alien geometry of the designs on the counter - and the emptiness overhead opened into something even deeper, even larger and inconceivable, and within the depths three pustulent green suns appeared, glowing bright and poisonous as the shadows writhed between them. The whispers in his mind rose in volume, coalesced as the shadows reached tendrils of dripping dark towards him, repeating words familiar and mocking:

 

“This isn’t what I wanted...”

  
  
  
  
“...isn’t there anything other than this?”

**Author's Note:**

> p.s that's a teeny tiny cameo by the Lurker at the Threshold right there
> 
> Like horror in your Voltron? Want more of it? Keep an eye out on my [writing tumblr](https://hollowrites.tumblr.com) for updates on my pet project, the Voltron Horror Collection!


End file.
